DOCKERS STAGE 24-HOUR PROTEST French. ports tied up are —PARIS A 24-hour general strike in French Ports effect:vely tied up shipping last week. The strike was called by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) to protest the recent arrest of three CGT leaders in Marseilles, where longshoremen have been striking for several weeks. Wage demands are at the heart of the strike movement but, at the same time, workers were protesting the expected arrival of the aircraft carrier Dixmude, carrying 48 navy fighter planes, the first such shipment under the North Atlantic pact, The vessel originally was expec- ted to dock at Bizerte, but strikes in Algerian ports, it was believed, changed this plan. _ Since Cherbourg ,was the only major French port not completely s ’ Papers ignore parley —MONTEVIDEO Tte Latin American Federation of Labor (CTAL) opened its conti- nent-wide conference here March 29 under chairmanship of President Vicente Lombardo Toledano. Unions from 20 Latin American countries were represented. Although thousands attended the opening rally, Montevideo papers carried nothing about it. paralyzed by the CGT strike call, it was considered possible the ves- sel would unload there. Meanwhile, the Federation of Port and Dock Workers hag re- leased a letter from the Associ- ation of Port Workers of Rio de Janeiro, which said: “We swear before your, people and before the flag of our country that we will not unload nor load war material coming from the U.S. or weap- ons destined to massacre our bro- thers in Viet Nam... This strike ...- is a warning to the imperia- lists ... that they cannot launch a new world war and that they will be suffocated by their>own wickedness”. Ask British dockers not to load arms LONDON | The Bnitish Communist party has asked dockers and . other transport workers throughout the country to refuse to handle arms for Malaya, where British troops are suppressing an independence movement, in the same way as French longshoremen are refus- ing to load arms for the Viet Nam (Indochina) war. 9. THE KUZNETSOVS DISCUSS THE FASHIONS Soviet people determine what new styles shall be e (The people, not fashion dictators in Paris, decide what will be the styles in the. Soviet Union. Ralph Parker, in this ninth article of his series on a typical Moscow family, tells what the Kuznetsovs wear, how they amuse themselves. Parker is the Moscow correspondent of the London Daily Worker.) —MOSCOW On our way home from a Saturday night dance at the Stalin Moter Works Palace of Culture, I said to my friends, the Kuznetsovs: ““You know, of all the stupid misconceptions of life in Soviet Russia that are held abroad, I think one of the sturidest is the idea that everything’s uniform and standardized.” Fresh in my mind was the picture of seven or eight hundred people of all ages enjoying them- selves in the ballroom and winter It was a full evening’s entertain- ment, The works dance orchestra, abit heavy in the brass section, per- haps, kept some people on their feet in waltzes, foxtrots and the tango. An amateur group in dazzling Costumes gave a polished perfor- Mance of some Ukrainian folk dan- Ces, And for a spell an instructor who Was something of a wag taught §Toup dances, some old like the Square quadrille, the Polish Krako- Wiak, and a Hebrew dance for wo- men only, and some quite new. _ I have seen these group dances i many parts of Russia. ‘There was a period when it seem- Sd they might be lost during the 1g transfers of country-bred peo- Ple into industry and the accompa- Xying formation of new habits and tastes, But lately people, especially young folk, have turned to them with new zest. There's nothing primitive about them. * * . What had interested me most at the dance, however, was the Variety in the dress of the guests, ‘I suppose this legend of stan- ardization was invented by peo- Ple who never think of the work- ing class except as a drab, grey ea Where if anybody does aspire © self-expression it is only to ape he fashions her ‘betters’ wear”, Na- tasha, Suggested, © clothing industry has now reached a level of quality and quantity where people can dress the way they think suits them. Immense trouble has been taken uring the past two years to widen he range of cloth and styles. i €cently the ministry of light dustries held one of its seasonal ade shows to set the fashions for © winter season. was attended by men and wo- a Who have to sell the ready- ade clothing manufactured in the Workshops, They saw during three long sum-~- “v days and evenings in the foyer ie & Moscow theater, the models pe a by the workshops’ design- ™m garden of this workers club, A large jury composed ef repre- sentatives of the ministry and of the retail trade, decided whether the model presented — there were mannequins for this — ought to go into production. The important thing was to get styles to suit the public’s taste. Practically all the Soviet repub- lics were represented, and some of the best’ dresses and suits shown came from Baku in Trans-Caucasia, Samarkand and Alma Ata in Ka- zakhstan., 4 It reminded us that the former colonial territories are now not only making cloth from their lo- cally-produced cotton, silk and wool but have making-up industries vy- SS Here Russian designers eae new prints, just one o e vies range of materials available to Soviet women, 2 majority of whom still prefer to make their own clothes. ing with those of Russia. And, incidentally, when I visited a Moscow textile mill recently the manager told me that to see the most up-to-date machinery I should have to go to Tashkent. Thus, with the development of light industry throughout the vast area of thig multimational state, the citizen is drawing the benefit of a pooling of many different tastes, traditions and skills. A smal] but significant point to illustrate this was the cover of a recent number of Fashion, the style magazine you find in all dress sal- ons. It showed Tamara Khanum, the accomplihsed Asiatic singer of na- tional! folk songs, wearing a smart- ly cut blue serge costume with one of those vivid little Uzbek skull- caps — tubeteika — which catch the eye of most visitors to the So- viet Union, Moscow being the great meeting place of the people from all over the Union, it is not surprising to find it also a melting-pot for fash- ion. This was very noticeable at the works dance, where Natasha point- ed out to my unskilled eye the deep, full sleeves of Caucasion influence, touches of West Ukrainian embroi- dery, feather-light Orenburg shawls and lace from North Russia and leatherwork from the Baltic. The line of evening dresses, how- ever, remains classically Russian with affinities with that period about a century and a quarter ago, ‘the time of Pushkin and Lemontov, which is so familiar to all here. Not that present fashions are archaic; but peoples less anxious to keep up with styles foisted on them by the shops than in certain other countries, feel freer to dress as it suits them and look far and wide for ideas. And because far more people in Shis country have their clothes made for them or make them them- selves, than elsewhere, it is they and not the shopkeepers or manu- facturers who tend to dictate fash- ion, a look at supports the struggles of the peoples Chinese People’s. Refuting the claims advanced “In reality, America not only ac- quired the Philippines and numer- ous strategic Pacific islands fifty years ago and got control over Japan and South Korea after World War Two, but is also attempting to control China, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Burma and. India. “The whole world knows that the U.S. government, in its attempt to annex China, has supported Chiang Kai-shek in waging large scale civil war, denying the Chinese people any freedom or any rights, any op- portunity to live in independence or peace, government is supplying the Chiang Kai-shek brigands with planes to bomb the mainland of China. Is this not a fact? “The U.S. is employing similar methods to support the puppets, Bao Dai, Syngman Rhee and Quir- ino in undermining the national in- dependence movements of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and of South Korea and the Philip- pines. However, Acheson declares that the U.S. “supports” the move- ments for national independence of the Asian peoples. Is this not turn- ing facts upside down? Chou Enlai compared Acheson's attempts to disrupt the Chinese- Soviet alliance to “a mosquito trying to shatter the fortress of world peace.” Acheson “threatens that China must not concern herself with Asian affairs, on pain of violating ‘not only every tradition and interest of the Chinese people’ and ‘the tradi- tions and interests of their Asidn neighbors, of the American people and, indeed, of all free peoples,’ but also of violating the UN Charter,” stated the Chinese premier. “{ think I must tell Acheson on behalf of the biggest nation in Asia and of her peoples that these ridiculous threats are already an- achronisms. Go down and look at the map! The affairs of the Asian peoples must be settled by the Asian peoples themselves — not by American imperialists on _ the other side of the Pacific Oce- an.” y An article by Hwang Yao-mien, a leader of the China Democratic League, in Kwangming Daily re- minded Acheson: “During the Northern Expedition of the Great Révolution of 1927, it was the American imperialists who first bombarded the Northern Ex- pedition troops in Nanking. “During the Anti-Japanese War after 1937, the American imperia- lists supplied the Japanese militar- ists with planes and scrap iron. “Even after Pearl Harbor, they armed Kuomintang general Hu- Chung-nan’s troops which encircled the Communist led areas instead of fighting Japan and gave free hand to Chiang Kai-sheks sabotage of the war against Japan. “. . . In 1945, American General Marshall, under the mask of me- diator was active in arming Chi- ang Kai-shek’s troops. Six bil- lion U.S. dollars were given to Chiang Kai-shek to slaughter the Chinese people. “Today, the American imperialists are still supplying money, mater- ials, arms and ammunition to the Kuomintang remnants in Taiwan, and Japanese war criminals are sent to Taiwan to help the Kuo- mintang remnants, while American planes bomb Chinese cities. They are even trying to stir up trouble in Tibet and the U.S. consul in Sinkiang was actually discovered helping Kuomintang bandits there. So much for American respect for the free choice of Chinese people!” To this moment the USS. |- ‘Cool off - take map’ = Chou to Acheson —PEKING U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s claim that the United States of Asia for national independence is termed “‘turning facts* upside down’: by Chou En-lai, premier of the by Acheson in his lengthy policy slatement of March 15, Chou En-lai declared: ‘‘Acheson said that America does not ‘want to take anything’ from the Asian peoples and does not ‘want to deny them any opportunity, any freedom, any right.’ CHOU EN-LAI “Affairs of Asian peoples must be settled by Asian peoples them- stlves s. 2” DEAN ACHESON “,.. not by American imperial- ists on the other side Pacific.” N.Z. unions hit arms spending AUCKLAND Several unions here have launch- ed a campaign for abolition of peacetime conscription, an end to military training in schools and a cut in arms expenditures to pre- war, levels. These demands indicate growing dissatisfaction with the leadership of the Federation of Labor, the na- tional union body which supports the government’s present arms pro- gram, of the U.S. claims rejected by Singapore court , SINGAPORE A Singapore court has ruled against a U.S. effort to regain pos- session of a Liberty ship which was originally signed over to Chiang Kai-shek by the U.S. government but which now flies the flag of the Chinese People’s Republic as a result of the action of her crew. Since Britain recognized the Peo- ple’s Republic of China, her courts have thrown out several U.S. suits for recovery of ships and planes which shifted their allegiance from Formosa to Peking. PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 7, 1950 — PAGE 3